A New Prayer for Love: Why + How You Need to Elevate Yours

Inside: Discover the problem with your current prayer for love and why it won’t get you what you truly need or deserve. Plus learn 5 elements to include in your prayer and get a written-for-you prayer for love.

Somehow, my face showed none of the sneering happening in my head. It was close but I managed to keep even the slightest curl of contempt off my lips.

My eyes tracked my quarry as he made his way from group to group. He was working over the people at the party without them knowing it.

“Arrogant,” I thought. “Arrogant, smug, and self-righteous.”

Suddenly, my face transformed into a sweet smile as he glanced my way. And he smiled back.

Then I returned my attention to the conversation flowing around me, dismissing my thoughts of a few moments before. But they lingered in the back of my mind.

How had I fallen in love with this smug, self-righteous, arrogant man?

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The Hurt behind Your Prayer for Love

The smug, arrogant, self-righteous man at the party—the one from whom I was hiding my contempt—was the man I loved. He was the man I planned to spend the rest of my life with.

I know, right?

But you see, he was also the man who blamed me for everything, criticized me at every turn, and kept hurting me emotionally. He was the man I let get away with making me feel like I wasn’t good enough for him, who I kept trying to be a better woman for, and who always rubbed my nose in me how badly I was failing.

This man swore he loved me to the ends of the earth. But deep down, I knew his actions told a very different story.

By the time the party came around, I’d endured so much in our toxic relationship that—to my shame—I secretly didn’t like my boyfriend anymore. He’d broken me into so many jagged pieces, I thought he was the best I could do.

Maybe you’ve been where I was—tangled up with a man who was charming and flattering in the beginning but who broke you to the point where you lost yourself and your hope for better.

Maybe you’re still with him, or maybe you’re picking up the pieces from the aftermath.

Either way, the relationship is coloring your prayer for love, and not in a useful way.

Your Old Prayer for Love

If you’re like me, you’ve done your best to make your man happy. You may have even gone so far as to change yourself until you don’t like who you’re becoming.

You’ve cried through countless prayers for him to love you more—or to love you just as you are—so you can stop feeling unworthy and finally deserve his love. You may have even prayed for him to change so you can—please God!—stop trying to change yourself.

The thing is, these prayers for love probably won’t work.

You see, God isn’t going to magically change your man’s heart towards you. Our gracious heavenly Father allows every person to make their own choice at every crossroads in their life. If He didn’t, He wouldn’t have given Adam and Eve the choice to trust His guidance and love over their desires.

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Genesis 2:16-17 (ESV)

So if your prayers for him to love you the way you want won’t work, what will?

Why You Need to Change Your Prayer for Love

Great news! There’s a better way to pray for love. And it’s completely independent of needing your man to be or do anything different.

You see, you can’t make your man—or anyone else—love you. His love for you is one hundred percent his decision and choice.

You get to choose how you want to show up in your relationship, and he gets to choose to love the you who shows up…or not. And once you stop trying to manage his feelings for you, you empower yourself to stop working, yearning, and praying for him to love you.

Instead, you can say a better prayer for the love you deserve.

Do You Believe You Deserve Good Love?

Before we get to your prayer for love, let’s talk about your self-worth and self-esteem.

They’ve taken a battering because of past or current relationships. So much so, you may no longer believe you deserve to be loved well.

“Uh, no, Kris,” you say. “I know I’m a good woman who deserves good love.”

But do your actions make a liar out of you?

If you believed it for real, would you let other people—especially your man who’s supposed to love you more than anyone else—emotionally manipulate and abuse you? Have you paid the price for keeping peace in your relationship and trying to make him happy with your identity and worthiness?

I bet if you tune in to your current prayer for love, you’ll find they’re built on a foundation of your diminished self-worth and self-esteem.

A Vision of the Good Love You Deserve

Once you start telling yourself the truth about your actual worthiness beliefs, you can start getting clear about the love you deserve.

First, start with some who I am in Christ affirmations to remind yourself of your worth and value to God.

Next, get familiar with how love can be between a woman of God and the man He’s chosen for her. You can read and interpret Song of Solomon on many different levels, one of which is a study of love and romance.

You are altogether beautiful, my darling, beautiful in every way…You have captured my heart, my treasure, my bride. You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes, with a single jewel of your necklace. Your love delights me, my treasure, my bride. Your love is better than wine, your perfume more fragrant than spices. Your lips are as sweet as nectar, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. Your clothes are scented like the cedars of Lebanon.
Song of Solomon 4:7, 9-11 (NLT)

Close your eyes and imagine true love like this wrapping you up. Feel the passion, intimacy, affection, protection, and trust in it.

Not to say this kind of love is perfect.

Since it involves 2 imperfect people, there’s bound to be trouble at some point. But when trouble comes, true, committed, mature love acts in a way that serves the relationship and the one they love in the best possible way.

Third, once you have an idea of what’s possible based on God’s word, it’s time to set some love standards for yourself. If you don’t, you’ll keep letting others undermine your self-worth, self-esteem, and self-confidence.

Finally, practice loving yourself by the standards of love you set for others. If you don’t set an example of how you expect and deserve to be loved by how you treat yourself, don’t expect it from anyone else—not your man, your family, or your friends.

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How to Pray for Love

You’ve started believing and behaving like you deserve good love. Plus, you have standards for how others should treat you. So now we’re ready to talk about your prayer for love.

In a minute, I’ll give you a written-for-you prayer for love. But first, let’s look at the elements to include in your prayer for love. This way, you can personalize and customize the prayer to fit your life and circumstances.

5 Tips for What to Include in Your Prayer for Love

Here are 5 elements to consider including in your prayer:

Praise God for who He is and for the new insight He’s given you about what you deserve.
Praise God for giving you a vision of the love He has for you.
Pray over the qualities you desire in your God-given love.
Pray over how your lives will be together.
Ask God to heal your wounded heart.

And now, here’s your prayer for love.

Your New, Elevated Prayer for Love

Father, thank You for opening my eyes to the possibilities of what you have for me. I let myself forget who I am to You—Your precious daughter. And although life is imperfect and You never promised that it would be otherwise, I’m grateful You want the best for me, including the love I deserve. And because You love me, I know I’m worthy of and deserve the best.

I understand that the love You have for me isn’t for my benefit or happiness; it’s for Your glory. So I pray You’ll reveal it to me at the exact right time. I pray this love will radiate the love of Christ, with You at the center of our lives. And I pray it stands as an example to others of the overflowing blessings that come when we submit our hearts, minds, and bodies to You in complete faith.

Thank You for showing me that this love isn’t meant to complete me since I’m already whole and complete in You. Instead, its purpose is to grow and build Your kingdom through the calling You have on our lives, as we work together in our sphere of influence.

Lord, my heart is battered and broken from misuse and mistreatment. I allowed it because I forgot who I was. But I want to love well and be loved well in return, and I can’t have that when I’m operating from a place of brokenness and mistrust. So I pray for healing, Holy Spirit. Help me to forgive those who’ve mistreated and misused me, and help me forgive myself for allowing it.

I lift my mate to You and I thank You for the godly relationship You have for us. I pray all this in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

A Final Truth about Your Prayer for Love

Back when my eyes met my boyfriend’s across the crowded room, my sweet smile was a glaring sign of my hypocrisy.

He’d abused me emotionally for years, and I was lying to myself and him about my feelings and about what I wanted.

My self-esteem and self-worth were so far in the toilet, I no longer believed I deserved better. And every prayer for love I sent up to God was about changing myself or changing my man so he’d finally love me.

Thank goodness our gracious God’s answer to those prayers was to extend His hand of love and yank me the heck outta that poisonous relationship.

God hears your prayers—every single one. And if your prayer for love lines up with what His word says He wants for You, then your success is sure.

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
1 John 5:14-15 (ESV)

With your new, aligned prayer for love, God will give you what you ask for…but in His way and timing.

In all honesty, it might not turn out to be what you expect. But you can bet it’ll be phenomenal.

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